ORIGIN - Myths and Legends

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Her questions did not annoy Giggle--in fact, the hyena was quite relieved to hear them. It meant the kid was curious, capable of learning; it meant she could impart some much-needed wisdom the child's way, and help guide her just a little.

"There's magic in everything. You have magic; I have magic. Some see the future, or the past, with magic. Maybe they see it in water, or fire, or rock. I see it in the bones," she explained, carefully; but these weren't the important parts.

"Well, think about it. Let's say you have something you worked really hard to get, and someone else wants it. You wouldn't be happy if they just took it, right? So we don't do that to each other. We ask, and we don't steal; we thank, to show our gratitude, when someone gives us something. It's about being what's called 'polite'--being nice to others. Kind. And Gembound who aren't polite usually get ignored or even hurt by others, if they're rude; if they hurt or steal." This was going well, so far. And the kid hadn't even asked about reproduction anymore. That was a definite bonus.

"You can play and fight if you want to. But be sure it's with those who want to, too. Don't go around hurting others. You wouldn't want someone to do that to you, right-? Just run up and hurt you? And anyway, they might have friends, friends that might hurt you to protect the one YOU hurt."

Teeth, she suddenly remembered--it was what she had told Kerberos, years ago. The three-headed puppy had insisted that, since he had more teeth, he could bite without repercussion--or something along those lines. Giggle had explained that friends, and family, were but more teeth that a victim might bite with; and that had, at last, finally gotten through. "Well, rats and mice aren't smart; they don't talk. So usually, if you have to eat meat, you eat the stuff that can't talk, see? That's... accepted, because they're prey." ...It sounded a little hypocritical, now that she thought about it.

"But I try to make my kills clean. There's no point in causing them pain or fear they don't -need- to feel, yeah?"

Okay, lessons over: time for conversation. Maybe more lessons, after that. "So, have you done any magic yet?" Giggle had had an inkling that the moment of eyes-closed breath-held constipation-faced silence had been a failed attempt at spellcasting, but she wasn't entirely sure and right now, she'd mostly forgotten. Maybe Fable had magic; maybe she didn't, but the hyena was curious as to whether she'd tapped into any, yet.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

@Fable

Fable could, for some very good reasons, assume that she did not, in fact, have any magic. It never seemed to come to her like it came to someone like Kerberos, who was summoning orbs of pink fire left and right like nobody's business. And also had three heads.

Maybe that had something to do with it.

The cub squinted at Giggle for a moment, perhaps suspiciously. "Okay," she said. "How do you see it? Just-- from looking at it?" A side-glance to the bones told Fable that seeing the future in bones seemed unlikely. If anything they'd tell you the past-- and only a specific piece of the past-- that something had died.

Her head turned back to Giggle when she was told to think about it and for a time, Fable actually did. She wouldn't be happy if someone took, say, something she managed to hunt-- but in that case what was just stopping her from taking it back and fighting? Was being polite just a thing to stop fighting from happening in the first place? But then--

"What if they say no?" She asked. Surely, this was the exception. "Then I can just take it, right, 'cause I need it? ... as long as I say please or thank you?" She added, with her newfound, expert knowledge of Politeness and Manners.

Still, each answer was met with more questions-- needling, pressing, considering every possibility (no matter how silly and unrealistic it might have been). "What if I did want to fight, and someone just ran up and hurt me?" She went on. "Then I can just turn around and fight? I want to fight. I want scars, like Kerberos has. I want to be cool."

She also wanted three heads, which was also cool, and also more heads meant she could fit more scars onto herself. This was no doubt a very reasonable desire.

Things that didn't speak were free game for eating, apparently, and she filed this information away for later. Killing it quick didn't seem to matter as much to her, however-- it was going to die anyway, and it was dumb enough maybe it wouldn't know what pain was. Though...

"What if they run?" Fable squinted again. "Rats and mice always run away from me when I try to eat them. How are you supposed to catch them without making them scared or hurting them?"

The sphinx finally fell silent for a moment once Giggle started asking about her own magic, however. A part of her wanted to lie, to not show weakness, to start boasting about Great Magics nobody had ever done before (so from her perspective-- not making fire or reading bones) but a glance over the hyena told her... not to.

If Giggle could find out the future from looking at bones, surely she'd be able to tell when someone was lying from glancing at them, even if they were great at it. And Fable, who had never lied a day in her life, was no doubt excellent at it.

"No," she said, not without some dry, frustrated exasperation. "I don't think I'm magic. I can't cast anything."

@Giggle

Ho boy. There were questions, and then there were questions. And this kid had a load of 'em. Giggle took a breath, waiting for them all to be asked, and then tried her best to tackle them--hoping she didn't forget any.

"Okay, so. For the bones-! I take one, and I carry it up to the top, that ledge up there--and I drop it down into the rest and I watch how they fall. They make patterns, and I can see things in them. I can show you now, if you want," she added, as it occurred to her that perhaps fate had sent her Fable to grant wisdom to. The bones worked in odd ways, at times, but she had grown to trust them. "I could read your future, if you like. As for the rest: you have to find your own answers, but there's a trick to that."

Giggle leaned close, giving a dramatic pause, a dramatic widening of the eyes, an equally dramatic drop in tone. She wanted Fable invested. She wanted Fable listening. "You imagine yourself as the other one in that interaction. So-... If someone asked for something of yours, and you said no, what would you want them to do-? Try to treat others as you'd want to be treated--that even goes for rats. If you have to eat, hunt them, kill them. You could use magic, or you can try to sneak up on them. I usually scare them. And dying, I'm sure, hurts. But I make it as fast as I can."

It must suck to be a rat, Giggle thought; and Omen, peering at her thoughts along their mental link, vaguely confirmed this. It sucked, in fact, to be a prey animal at all.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

@Fable

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